The focus of any wedding ceremony is always the bride. In tradition, the guests gasp while taking in her beauty as she walks down the aisle. Most wedding photographers also focus on this moment in time by devoting most of the wedding photography to her. While the pictures do serve to memorialize the bride's emotions on this most important of days, the groom often provides a different form of emotion in these pictures.
The Tradition Of Photographing The Bride
Most wedding photographers focus their "pre-wedding" photography on the beautiful bride and her bridesmaids as they prepare for the ceremony. The way they take their time in creating the most perfect image for the day with their makeup, hair, and dresses lends an air of sophistication and refinement to a wedding album. While the beauty of these moments are alluring and refined, they are often lacking in the intense excitement the groom and his groomsmen bring to wedding photography.
A Party Atmosphere
Filled with nerves and emotions, the bride and groom usually handle the hours before a wedding ceremony in very different ways. Women tend toward the reserved, fussing on little details, holding back tears, and making sure everything is perfect. However, men tend toward excitement, even participating in a little high jinks and tomfoolery before the ceremony, encouraging more of a party atmosphere.
These moments of mischief provide wonderful wedding photography opportunities. Getting these extraordinary shots of the groom and his groomsmen before the ceremony will tell a totally different story than those of the bride and her bridesmaids in the wedding album. While both the bride and groom are nervous before their wedding, they usually express it in opposite ways.
Capturing photos of the groom allows wedding photographers to tell both sides of the story in pictures through contrasting pre-wedding photography. A teary eyed photograph of the bride hugging her mother before the wedding tells a much different story than the groom grinning ear to ear as he tosses a football with his buddies out on the church lawn before the wedding. However, both photographs tell a stunning story through wedding photography.
Capturing A Memorable Story
It is important to capture those moments of playfulness, emotion, and even fear through wedding photography, especially as they happen unpredictably. After all, once these moments have passed, they're gone forever, but when captured by a wedding photographer, they tell the story forever.
The bond between a bride and her bridesmaids is different than between a groom and his groomsmen. By taking advantage of photojournalistic opportunities on both sides, you also capture that bond of friendship, resulting in a wedding album, not just about the relationship between the bride and groom, but that also shows the love the bride and groom have for their friends and family.
The job of a wedding photographer is to document a captivating love story through photography. The hours before a wedding offer insight into that love story plus a whole lot more. Wedding photographers in Chicago, or in any other city, who go beyond traditional wedding photography to also take a photojournalistic look at the groom will find surprising moments of charm, emotion, and joy between him and his groomsmen.
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